Iron Mountain ski jump

Wednesday, August 17, 2016

VIRTUAL GRANDPA

I encountered two men
yesterday. They have no idea the other even exists, yet they are closely
interconnected.

The first is Jeremy
Bailenson of the Virtual Human Interaction Lab at Stanford U. He looks more
like a cleaned up truck driver than a professor. He was interviewed by Charlie
Rose on TV.

The second was a grandfather
at the College Hills Mall. He looked like a cleaned up truck driver, too. I first
ran into--or more accurately, was run into—by a happy little boy of about four
who ran pell-mell, toward me, then turned and looked behind.

“Grandpa?” I couldn’t see
anyone. He couldn’t, either. “Grandpa?” Just a slight tremble of uncertainty in
his voice. Then we saw the slyly smiling face of a man of sixty or so, peeking
from behind one of those free-standing posters that suggest you should come to
shop where you already are.

The little boy giggled
like a maniac, ran wildly toward the poster, got to it, only to find that
Grandpa had switched to the other side, and giggled even harder. I still hear
him laughing. What a delightful sound. What delightful memories of playing that
way with my own grandchildren.

Jeremy Bailenson says we
should not go see our grandchildren because the main cause of global warming is
the use of fossil fuels for travel. If we want our grandchildren to have a
livable world, we have to stop traveling to see them.

He didn’t put it exactly
that way, of course. But if the work of his lab continues at its present pace,
old folks who have grandchildren in Europe and Vermont and other inaccessible
places can play hide and seek with them while staying home and thus not make
the future uninhabitable for those grandchildren we love.

Bailenson was not really thinking
of grandparent travel. His concern is primarily business travel. If his lab
makes virtual interaction even more immediate and available, many, maybe most,
people can do their work while staying home. Unlike current versions of Skype
and Facetime and the like, you won’t be able to do it in your underwear because
it will seem like you are actually there. You can shake hands with the
boss and it will feel like you’re really shaking hands.

Most old folks are past
worrying about how to shake hands with the boss, but we aren’t past wanting to
play with our grandchildren and have coffee with old friends. Wouldn’t that be
neat, sitting in a wheel chair in “the home,” to be hiding behind a poster in
the mall while giggling children look for you? Wouldn’t it be fun to sit with
your Madagascar grandchildren in the Great American Ball Park and cheer for the
Reds while sitting in the recliner in your living room? Wouldn’t it be grand to
hang out at the coffee shop at the Union Building with your college roommate
while she sits in her garden in Georgia and you’re in your parka in the Upper
Peninsula?

Sure, it sounds
far-fetched, but so did space travel and TV and computers. Sure, it could be
used for evil ends, but so can jelly beans. We need to stop thinking like old
fossils and embrace new possibilities. Virtually. Maybe even virtuously.

No, I don’t understand
virtual reality, but I think it’s a lot like prayer.